Garden update from New Jersey: baby mantis and poppies

The baby praying mantis' are out, growing quickly by eating aphids.  We see up to 10 at the time, and they are hanging out by the daylilies, which opened their giant yellow flowers today.

We have had too much rain already.  But the plants love it. In the last week we have had 7 inches of rain, which is nearly 200 mm. The fruit on my car window is an immature red maple samara.

AREA and I went to The New York Botanical Garden a few weeks ago. Philip Hass has an exhibit there where he has made giant, oversized sculptures inspired by Arcimboldo's The Four Seasons.  What do you think?  We weren't too impressed.  Gaudy and overblown, I think. It also looks like a plastic flower arrangement. (more photos here)

And, among the nicest things our town has done recently is the installation of solar panels by each school, and, the sowing of wildflower seeds around their newly planted trees.  Here are the weedy cornflower and poppies flourishing, with the solar panels in the background. People stop and take photos, just like we did.  This is so much nicer than green, sprayed, sterile, lawn.

Stamp of the Day: Biomass energy

Here comes the forest, sliced up and ready to be put into the furnaces of the bioenergy plants.  Stamp from Sweden, simple and clean graphics.

Stamp of the day: the power of wind and lines

We are continuing our little series (2 so far) of energy related stamps, here with a Swedish stamp featuring wind power (vindenergi).  I love the clean lines... Sweden stuck to real engraved stamps for along time, and some are still done this way, but I think most American stamps by now are made with less time-consuming graphical techniques. The engraver of this one, Czeslaw Slania, was the master of Swedish engraving, and in fact, the world master of stamp engraving and world famous for his work for 28 countries.  He was hired by the Swedish postal office in 1959. Here is the 1000th stamp he engraved: link.

Stamp of the day: piston, flywheel, and cylinder

Germany has some really nicely designed stamps, clean and simple.  Here is an engine piston (I think).  Maybe PP can interpret it better?  Looks like a flywheel with gears and a cylinder with a piston inside.  I am not sure if this is from a steam engine, gas engine, or what...

UPDATE: Our friend BV just sent me this, which explains the stamp in detail (thanks!!!!):

If PP hasn't let you know, the engine pictured on the stamp is a Otto
Langen Free Piston Atmospheric Engine, circa 1867.

A small flame, like a pilot light on a stove was at the base of the cylinder.
I do not know the starting procedure, but as the engine was running, if
the wheel started to slow down, a gas, like natural or coal gas, was
admitted into the bottom of the cylinder, and a little trap door would
open next to the base.  The flame would be drawn into the base, igniting
the gas, and drive the piston upward.  This would push the vertical rack
gear attached to the piston and engage the gear on the flywheel shaft,
increasing the speed of the wheel. The inertial energy would be stored in
the rotating wheel, which drove a load attached to it.  As the flywheel
slowed down to a certain speed, a governing mechanism would start the
process over again to keep the engine running until the fuel supply was
removed.

You can see one at the Rough & Tumble Museum at Kinzer, PA.
It is run for exhibition days.

And life goes on...

Rainbow shield bugs on Jatropha, originally uploaded by tonrulkens.

Aren't these insects incredible? They are rainbow shield bugs (Calidea dregii, Hemiptera) from Africa, and they live on developing seeds of Jatropha, an Euphorbiaceae (like poinsettia) that is being developed as a biofuel. Apparently the males do a courting dance before they mate and they are the most active during the hottest day, so no siesta for these.

Photo by Ton Rulkens on Flickr. (Thanks for letting us post it!)

Bits and pieces from the internet: steam, meat, and mean edition

Interesting article in The New York Times about a car designed to run on steam, but never did, the Paxton Phoenix from 1960.

A new delicious monkey species have been reported on by the satirical magazine The Onion (funny!)

I am steaming after I discovered that someone stole my ATM card number and the pin too (how?) and have been taking out over $1700 dollars from my bank account.  The bank tells me I will get the money back.  Why are some people so MEAN? 

Apropos mean, they have started to steal human hair from salons.  What is next - cutting of a long braid or ponytail from someone's head in the subway?

In case you missed it, all three nuclear reactors in Fukushima have had nuclear meltdowns and are leaking radioactive water into the ocean.  The Japanese say a total shutdown will be done in 6-9 months (which is questionable if it is even doable).  Let's hope for no more tsunamis or big earthquakes between now and then... 

Poor world, too much is happening to it and us right now - tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding Missisippis, tornados, rain and drought....

Bits and pieces from the internet, business edition

One company that I really like, Burt's Bees, who make nice natural lipbalms and schampoos, are now owned by Clorox.  Ick, how did that happen?  I found out because I was thinking about investing a little money in LUSH stocks, a similar company, but it turns out that it is still privately owned with no stocks (which I now think is a good thing).  Clorox is not mentioned on Burt's Bees website, hmmm... I wonder why?. Read more here about green-washing and big nasty companies gobbling up small nice ones.

The New York Times have decided that if you read a lot of their articles online you will have to pay a monthly fee and become a subscriber.  However, if you follow a link from a blog or other media site, you should be able to read it for free. If you read something on an iphone it costs your more than from a laptop, and if you are rich and have an ipad, you have to pay 133% more than if you just have a laptop ($35 per month).  I think they are crazy.  So, from March 28, there might be much fewer New York Times articles e-mailed by me to some of you, but maybe more posted here on the blog for you to see.  We will see how it goes. 

Newsweek has changed owner and editor, and I like most of it so far, except for the font for the headings.  But the articles are more interesting, and less about celebrities and more daring and thoughtful. Tina Brown, the current editor, is going in the right direction.  I have subscribed since the early 1990s, wow, that is 20 years, and a year ago I was ready to quit, but now I am giving them a 2nd chance.   NPR, International Women's Day, Ignorant Americans... that is a bit different from before.

These strange black and white photos are not straightforward business.  What is going on here?

I wonder what the French business woman that praised nuclear energy as the best thing ever in the recent Newsweek is thinking now, since her article was published just a few days before the Japanese tsunami and earthquake that led to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.  She is probably thinking just the same thing as before, but many other people are not.

The same viewpoint was featured in this 1 minute energy video which is rather cool until it ends with a nuclear power plant and a city were mindless people dance to rock music on a roof of a building.  But the graphics were good, steam trains and viking ships... it is just the ending that really bothers me, especially considering what has happened in Japan.  Guess where the oldest American nuclear reactor is?  Yep, in New Jersey. 

Bits and pieces from the internet, there is more...

An amazing train photo fit for Halloween night taken by a friend of ours, Eric Williams

Really nice wooden things from Sweden.

The New York Times writes about vintage tractors.  And Pontiac (goodbye!).

The sorghum crops were taller in the old times.

Leaf blower users, move over: "In the meantime, blower foes can humiliate their enemies by citing a city of Los Angeles study that “showed a grandmother using a rake and broom took only 20 percent longer to clean a test plot than a gardener with a blower.”" Story here.

Alternative fuels...

In Scotland, the energy production might soon have a new scent:

"Using samples from the Glenkinchie Distillery in East Lothian, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed a method of producing biofuel from two main by-products of the whisky distilling process – "pot ale", the liquid from the copper stills, and "draff", the spent grains." (link)

Those Scots, they are really ingenious!  And if they base it on Laphroaig, then they even have some smoke! Meanwhile, poorer people are burning cow dung and in America bad things are going on:

"Each year, American food waste represents the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil, according to new research from the University of Texas."  (link)

fire slit

fire in firebox: locomotive 487, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Imagine that the only thing between you and a very hot, boiling steamy firebox that leads to a steam boiler that leads to pistons capable of hundreds, if not thousands of horse powers are two iron doors that you can open with a small handle - here it is! This is the closed doors to the firebox of steam locomotive 487 on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the former narrow gauge part of the Denver and Rio Grande Western railroad in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The steam is still going strong, but only because of fantastic volunteers and other workers. We just happened to walk by and were invited up in the cab to see the real work environment of the engineer and fireman, thanks to some nice workers at this railroad in Chama. I have to say that I have never met such consistently nice people as in these areas. More photos from the center of the United States are coming, but I have 1500 photos or so to sort through :)

BP = before present (oil spill and pink assumptions)

The oil is still gushing out from a giant toxic sludge sewer pipe, killing and poisoning, and BP is getting more and more disliked. There is a contest going on to redesign BP's logo to a more fitting one, from the green and yellow flower to something infused with oil, like these dead animals.There are many suggestions on how to fix the leak and the spill too...

On a totally unrelated note, I find that people who insist that baby pink T-shirts for women and green T-shirts for men (with no option to switch or choose) to not be a sexist thing to be very, very oblivious, uneducated and misinformed about gender roles and prejudice.  Let the men have some pink shirts if they like, and don't assume the women should have pink, please. This happened today at work, as part of a public celebration...  Pink is fine as a personal choice, but not as an assumption and expectation linked to all people with XX chromosomes.  (And don't get me started on pink toys and clothes for little girls... pink stinks even more there).

A Swedish classic on the likelihood of nuclear power disasters

This video of Tage Danielsson shows one of his most classic dark-comedy monologues which he made right after the nuclear failure at Three Mile Island in Harrisburg, USA in 1979. This was in the middle of the campaigning in Sweden before the national referendum if Sweden should develop or undevelop their three nuclear power stations. It is too bad this is non-translatable, it is a fantastic linguistic peace of work. The main point is that the accident at Three Mile Island was so unlikely that it really couldn't have happened, or... It is a big play on words, and the victims of his jokes are mainly the Social Democrats who led Sweden at the time. So this is for you Swedes that read this blog! Enjoy! (Swedish blog about Tage)

"Utan tvivel är man inte klok" = "Without doubt you are not intelligent" (quote from Tage Danielsson)

The Power of Electricity and Weather

Some photos from the last couple of days chaos in New Jersey. On Saturday it rained huge amounts, and then the wind came. Soggy grounds couldn't keep the trees up, so they fell. All roads to our house were closed for about 24 hours, and we still have no power, phone or internet, and it is now Tuesday. They estimate that they will manage to get the downed electric lines up maybe Thursday, but I doubt it. It is so many places that needs to be fixed, and at least 50 000 houses still have no power in NJ.

The photos are of a tree on our road (the only road to our house that has been opened, two roads are still closed). The damage in the vegetable garden when the cold frame glass tops flew up in the air, the fantastic gas-powered generator we were allowed to borrow from our wonderful neighbors (thanks DL and JL!!!! you are the best!).

Using siphon lines out through the basement door to drain the sump pump by gravity - it works!!!! (at least when it only rains moderately..) Our battery backup for the sump pump only lasts for 7 hours, and without this and then the generators our basement would have been flooded. Never mind that we live at 350 ft above sea level, we get flooded too. The ground is so soaked and with the clay soil, no water goes anywhere except into our basement, into our driveway and so on... Our juryrigged tarp to protect the sump pump generator (also borrowed from our fantastic neighbors). My boots...

This is the longest we have been without power ever. Next time we will be more prepared. We have already bought a crank-powered radio, and we will get our own generator and setup for it. We will have enough gas on hand so we don't have to try to get out and drive under half-fallen trees only held up by a powerline about to burst. We will have some bottled water, just in case.

The problem is that when the power goes we have only our cell phones and the gas stove - no heat, no water, no phone, no internet. It has been an interesting couple of days, but we have managed to cook some great dinners and our frozen food supply is safe, nobody got hurt, the basement didn't flood (much), and we even got to take hot showers after two days due to our wood furnace and the generator powering the water pump. But tonight we are going out for dinner!!! (I am at work writing this).

OK snapshot: 'Veboa' by night

Out in the country (=Barking Dog Plaza) we are keeping the fire going! -17
degrees C outside, plus 25 C inside. (Americans, that is about 0 F outside
and 80 degrees inside.

'Veboa' = wood shed (really, it is vedbod, OK is just a bit accented).
Photo by OK, posted by Lena.

Stamp of the Day: Windy ways

We are having a very blustery day-after-Thanksgiving-Day here in New Jersey, but no rain so far. In Denmark they have harvested wind energy for centuries, and this stamp commemorates the wind mill in Askov. It has a really interesting history, involving patents and other things you can read about here. Denmark is a leader in wind energy and the US is lagging incredibly far behind, as usual, when it comes to sustainable, alternative energy.

You need one of these, or two, or three...

A carbon monoxide alarm!

We had a scare at the house tonight. With only the kids at home and me and PP on the way from our work places, the furnace choked and spewed out rotten egg sulfur infested gases in the house with some carbon monoxide, which caused the alarm to go off. The kids called 911 (thanks!) and got out of the house, so when PP and I got home there were firetrucks, ambulance, and police here. Kids were safe, just some oxygen for one of them, and the house had to be aired out. No fire, thank god! The firemen were very confused by our dual wood/oil burner and also by the heat tank of course. After 40 min or so we could go back inside and then the kids and I went off to get Chinese take out for dinner. Nobody was in the mood to cook. Our oil company service guy showed up after 30 min, I guess when you mention fire trucks that they decide they need to be here. The whole oil burning part of the furnace was all full of soot, and it had clogged the exhaust pipe, but it is all cleaned out now. We are not sure why it happened, why the oil burner burned so bad and clogged it up. But thank god that 1) it didn't happen at night, 2) that someone called 911, and 3) that nothing caught on fire. And mainly - I am so happy we have carbon monoxide detectors. If not, the kids could have stayed in the house and get poisoned. So all of you, get carbon monoxide detectors now! Many thanks to our kids AREA and LA, and to the neighbors and local volunteer firemen and EMS too! Thank you, thank you.

Natural heat...

Ice storm outside and warm inside with the fire going in our furnace (värmepanna) in the basement. Here is one of our first wood fires ever in our combined oil-wood furnace, a great danish TARM firebox.

We have also bought the fantastic Swedish AGMA wood splitter to get the wood down to reasonably sizes. We also have a great ax from Sweden that my mom brougth with her in her suitcase a few years ago. No, not in the carry on :)

Now all we need is some solar electric power, solar hot water in summer and a heat tank, a diesel generator for emergencies when we have no power and the basement fills up with water, a new animal fence around our vegetable garden, and our Vermont Vigilant wood stove installed in the living room. Hmm, wouldn't all this be nice!?

How about some chickens for fresh eggs and a rabbit or two for rabbit stew? The best success this year in the vegetable garden was our chili peppers - we have never had so many before. They are now in Swedish Christmas sausage and homemade mustard, hot sauces, and pickles, and we still have lots of leftover dried ones.

Wood travel

A group of people have built a car in Sweden that goes on firewood, similar to the system used during World War 2. The car, based on a 1970's Volvo passed inspection, and then went on a trip back and forth through all of Sweden. During the trip they used up about 6000 liters (1250 gallons about) of firewood. I think this is very ingenious, even if I don't know exactly how it works. More here.

Saving money and energy takes a lot of time and effort

Recently we have made a large effort to make our living here in New Jersey better for the environment and cheaper (after realizing our oil costs would be at least $5000 next year). We still don't have the solar hot water/wood burning heat system we are dreaming of, but I think it is in the works, at least in our heads. But smaller steps are good too.



So, we got an expensive, 10-year warranty Australian laundry line, and we now dry our laundry (mostly) outside. This works great, but you have to hang and unhang and fold it... and keep an eye on the sky. With about 6 laundry loads a week in this house, I bet this will cut down on our electric bills and our arm muscles will swell.

Collect water in rain barrels to water the garden - this hasn't happened yet. I called the vineyards and they want $100 for a used wine barrel, so I think we will stick to plastic which lasts much longer anyway. We are going to collect rainwater from the house and store it and then gravity feed the garden hose for the vegetables. So instead of more sustainable wood, we will probably have plastic...

We bought 4.5 cords of fire wood and stacked it all, it is about 4 cubic meter I think. It wasn't free but it is cheaper than oil, and we are lucky that we already have a wood/oil furnace. Now we want to get a Smart Splitter like at barking Dog Plaza and a Husqvarna chain saw to attack the bigger pieces. And then in the winter we will have to light the fire in the basement instead of just letting the automatic oil burner take care of it all.

No air conditioners this summer either, yet. Take off your clothes instead and sweat.

Next on the agenda - do temporary fixes to the kids' windows that are in bad shape to reduce winter drafts, until we can replace them. Fix the seal on the front door. Get solar power to the barn so we have light in the winter when we chop wood. Catch all ground hogs, especially those that trick the trap repeatedly. Dig a new fence around the vegetable garden. Put in a tile floor in front of the main door to the house. Paint around some windows. Drain hot tub, which has been turned off to save electricity (who needs a hot tub in the summer anyway).

While I was swimming my 22 laps recently in the township pool I realized that it is so easy for people to do the 'wrong' thing. It really takes a lot of effort, time, and sometimes muscle power to live more cheaply and sustainably. Why would anyone that is rich stack their own firewood or hang their own laundry? Being environmentally friendly is inconvenient and sweaty. Our whole society has been going towards more and more convenience and easier-living, and now this? Why can't environmentally friendly solutions be easy? Solar power should be cheap! It isn't. This country (USA) is so far behind Europe it is not even funny.

All of this of course reminds me of growing up at Barking Dog Plaza - hanging laundry, wood fires in the morning, chopping wood (all free there), and so on.

(Updated with photos)

Adria, Winnebago, Polar...

Garrison Kiellor, the host of the famous radio show The Prarie Home Companion, has written an eulogy for the winnebago/RV/caravan/husvagn. With gasoline prices rising fast all over the world few people want to pull a giant box around on the road. An excerpt:

"Nonetheless it's sad to see the motor home fade into the sunset. I used to despise them when I was a canoeist, of course. You paddle up to a campground at the end of a hard day and see a few RVs parked there, the air conditioners rumbling, the flickering blue light of the TVs in the windows, and as you set up your tent as far from them as possible, you feel a moral grandeur purer than you will ever feel again. A holy Christian pilgrim among the piggish heathen."

This reminds me of growing up. Our caravan was always the tiniest of them all, except for some childless hippie-like couples that had the little egg-like ones. We had no TV, no AC, no bathroom, no shower, and with all beds down the remaining floor space was less than 0.7 square meter (=7 square feet). We spent a lot of time outside.

Kiellor goes on talking about how America is not made for non-gasoline life, and wonders what will happen:

"So we will need to amuse ourselves in new ways. I predict that banjo sales will pick up. The screened porch will come back in style. And the art of storytelling will burgeon along with it. Stories are common currency in life but only to people on foot."